For decades, consumers have used hair styling products to help achieve a desired look, including fuller/thicker hair, sleek and straight hair, and frizz-free defined curls. Many different types of hair styling products are commercially available. Nonetheless, consumers desire new multi-functional hair products that are long lasting, convenient, and impart certain cosmetic characteristics to the hair.
Traditional anhydrous oil treatments have been used to nourish and moisturize dull, dry, and damaged hair. These oil treatments also help control frizz and define hair while maintaining a natural look, but the performance of oil treatments is limited, especially in terms of long lasting shape control. In particular, traditional oil treatments do not typically provide benefits such as shaping memory, improved volume, strengthening, heat protection, etc. Oil treatments moisturize and control frizz while maintaining a natural look, but lack many additional styling benefits that consumers seek.
Styling products that provide styling benefits such as shaping memory, hold, improved volume, etc. are advertised but these products also suffer from certain drawbacks. For example, many styling products provide protection against external factors such as protection from moisture to minimize or reduce frizziness. To protect against moisture, a water-resistant film or coating can be applied to the hair. Many of these films or coatings are formed with film-forming polymers. Depending on the chemical make-up of the film-forming polymers, they may be either soluble in water, or they may be water insoluble polymers that are solubilized in water via various chemical modifications, such as neutralization. Solutions comprising these polymers tend to be viscous, i.e. as the concentration of the polymer increases its viscosity builds up rapidly. Translated to styling applications, as the solvent evaporates, the polymer solution becomes thicker on the hair surface, leaving a sticky or tacky film residue on the hair. This often leaves hair with a stiff and/or “crunchy” feeling (i.e. the films become hard and brittle and therefore have a crunchy feel or sound when manipulated), which is undesirable to many consumers.
Consumers desire new multi-functional hair products that have a natural look and feel, impart good styling benefits to hair, are durable, and lack the drawbacks of other products.